Protect Me
by PikaCheeka
Summary: GUNDAM 00 FIC. Hallelujah struggles to help Allelujah cope with their loss in the only way he knows how. Angst and mild fluff, seeing as Halle is being semi-decent for once. References to HalxAl, LockonxAlle, AllelxTieria. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 23.


A/N – Figures I was only able to finally write my HalAl fic after episode 23. Yea, MAJOR SPOILERS, so turn around if you haven't already seen or heard. Alle's my favorite character, Lockon x Alle one of my favorite pairings, so I couldn't resist. ;; I'm actually not very happy with the way this came out. I feel HalAl deserves better, but...eh. It's been a stressful last few days.

Hallelujah struggles to help Allelujah cope with their loss in the only way he knows how. Angst and mild fluff, seeing as Halle is being semi-decent for once. References to H x A, L x A, A x T….because Alle gets around, I guess. PG13 for language, character death, and sex references. Please pay attention to what is in italics! It's important. Whoever isn't controlling the body at the moment speaks in italics.

Hallelujah POV, to mess things up a bit. And I know it's a bit choppy. Part of it is style, but I admit most of it is my shock and confusion over what happened in episode 23. I probably shouldn't be writing about it so soon after. I get way too emotional.

Protect Me

By PikaCheeka

I hate it when he cries. I hate it more than anything, not because it shows how stupid and weak he is but because he is hurting. It's okay if I hurt him, but not if someone else does. If he's crying because of someone else it means I failed, and that doesn't sit well with me, especially not when he's making so much noise.

_Shut up, Allelujah. What is crying going to do?_

"He's dead." The words were flat and empty, as if he thought by saying them like that he could negate it. He just stood there, leaning against his closed door, staring at the floor through his tears. Closed and locked. Everyone else was together on the bridge, but he had come in here, not even crying until the door was locked, like he was afraid to let anyone else know he cared at all.

_Aren't you used to death by now? You're still alive, so what does it matter? He's dead. You're not. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way. And I bet he'd hate to see you crying like this just as much as…_

"He's…" he trailed off, his voice cracking off in another sob. Why did he have to cry now? He hadn't even cried when he had heard. We had heard Setsuna screaming, Tieria sobbing, through the radio. And he had just sat there, whispering no no no again and again. 

_Allelujah. You know how much I hate it when you cry. Stop it._

He reflexively bit his wrist, his way to calm his tears that he's had since he was a child. It didn't work this time. It doesn't normally work, but every time I tell him that he just gets more upset. "I. I loved him." 

_Oh please, and you're crying because you never told him how much you love him? You think he didn't know? You were obsessed. _So much so that I felt jealousy, not like you need to know that you stupid bastard. Not like you even noticed that I was seething in rage every time you cuddled up with him in bed. Just because he can physically be with you like that you think it's okay to ditch me for him.

"I never did tell him. If I had told him…"

_He'd still be dead. I don't know why he went out there and did what he did, but he did it for a reason that was so deep it wouldn't have changed for anything. _

"You lie," he snarled, and I almost smiled. Anything was better than crying.

_Look, he knew how much everyone on this ship loved him and he still went and did it. Tieria tried to lock him away from Dynamos because he knew words were useless. You think just because you actually voiced how you felt it would change anything?_

"What Tieria did was useless, too."

_Lockon would have done it no matter what. You can't change someone's mind if they're determined to die. If you had told him you loved him, it wouldn't have mattered either. Nothing mattered to him anymore. It wasn't your fault._

"He didn't want to die." He had gone a full minute without sobbing now.

_Why did he do that, then? Because he had to kill that guy. He knew he was going to die but his desire to kill that son of a bitch over-rode his desire to live. What he wanted didn't matter. He was determined. _

"Then you're no better. All you care about is killing. You make me kill." It was why he hated me and I knew that was why he hated me, but I put up with it because I only killed to protect him. If I had to live with his hatred that was fine, because it meant he was still alive. 

_No. I put life over all else. Killing others should be a part of staying alive. It shouldn't be the other way around which is how it ended up with Lockon, who wrapped his whole being around revenge. Guess he was more unstable than he ever let on. He wasn't fighting for an ideal like he pretended. He wanted it all to end._

"Halle, please…" he was shaking so violently I was shaking too, and after a moment I began to pull him away from the door. I had to make him move or he would stay there all night. I had to make him angry.

_He was weak. He let himself die._

"What is wrong with you?" he cried, whipping around, trying to catch me, but I ducked behind him and grabbed him around the chest. 

_Calm down, Alle. _I whispered, pushing him toward the bed and sitting him down. I continued to hold him, and for once he was receptive to my touches, vague as they were. I was almost afraid to let him go. 

"You don't even care about him."

I do care, but I care about you more. Why are you too stupid to see that? _I liked him well enough. Hell, of everyone we've ever met he was the one I preferred to be with, but I'm not stupid enough to get attached like you do, like all of you do. You fall in love and then they die or they leave you. _

"So it's better to not get close, to feel nothing?"

_You're wishing you felt nothing now. _He thinks he's so complicated, but he's stupidly simple, which I guess means I am too but I can live with that. _And I wasn't saying that anyway._ I added as an afterthought, resting my head on his shoulder. No, I wouldn't want to feel nothing, not when I had him.

"I love him."

Isn't that better than having loved him? But I didn't dare say it, didn't want to get into an argument over that now. I had to steer this elsewhere. I could control him if I played it right, could make those tears stop. _What are you so upset over? Compared to everyone else, you're hardly the worst off. You came out on top._

"Shut up. Just because you…"

_I what? You're not alone. Yea he died, he left a few people alone, but you're not one of them._

He opened his mouth to protest but I stopped him before he could speak, tightening my fingers over his lips. 

_Think about it. The girl on the bridge, with her entire family dead and now the boy she was in love with._ He knew just as well as I that this was so. We had heard their conversation that day, which seems so long ago now though it was only a few weeks. _And Setsuna. He has no family either, and Lockon was the closest he had to a brother, a friend. Tieria…_

"Tieria has me."

I groaned and leaned in close to his ear, breathing down his neck. _Just because you slept with him once or twice… It's not like he loved you. Maybe he didn't hate you, but… That bitch hadn't felt a damn thing until Lockon risked his life to save him. _

He fought against me, though weakly, and I was able to knock him down, push him down on his stomach on the bed. I dropped down beside him and wrapped my arms around him. His face was wet against my shirt when he turned to press against me and I stroked his hair, unsure of what to do. He was crying not because of something I did, not because of something we both shared, but because I had failed to protect him. _Why the hell do you care? I know you like Tieria but you knew how he felt. Why are you stupid enough to open up to people if it only hurts you? _But even as I spoke I knew I was speaking to not only him but to myself. Because I was hurting, too, hurting because he was hurting and I didn't protect him. _Look at everyone else. They find someone and then that person dies and they're alone again and every damn time they turn around they face it all over again. Why do you want to be like that? You have me, you damn son of a bitch. Me. I won't leave you. I can't leave you. If you let yourself have only me and stop trying to have others too than you won't ever get hurt again and you'll be safe. You'll be mine. _I could not tell if he was listening, but his tears had slowed, his hands relaxing on my back. 

"Hallelujah…" he whispered.

_See, you're not alone. Even though he died. You're not alone like the rest of them are now, and you can never be alone. _

"But I…"

I knew what he was going to say and I cut him off, just as I have so many times before. _We may not both have two different bodies but you can still feel me. Can't you still feel my arms around you?_ I knew he could, because sometimes he would tell me to stop touching him, and it's not as if we never had sex. Maybe afterwards he felt dirty and uncomfortable but during it he never seemed to notice that we had to share. He couldn't know how much it hurt when he asked that, couldn't know how much I wanted to be able to give him everything he wanted.

He pushed his face harder against my chest, his voice so muffled I barely heard it. "I need more." 

_I love you._ I didn't even mean to say it. I've said it a lot, but usually only to annoy him. Or when we were little and he didn't understand what it meant but just accepted it. But now it holds a new meaning and I'm not sure what to do with it. When we knew that guy was dead and I felt something inside Alle break, I felt something break inside me too, and I know now that what he felt for Lockon is what I feel for Alle. _And I won't die on you._

He froze. This is why you never tell people you love them. Because they never believe you. It's better not to love at all because then you never get hurt. You don't get them thinking you're lying and you don't get them leaving or dying. Alle will never leave or die, not without me. But he doesn't believe me either, and that's even worse I sometimes think. And I knew this was the real reason he never told Lockon anything. 

"Never?" he finally whispered after a long moment.

I almost laughed. How many times had he begged me to leave him alone? How many nights had he lain awake cursing that vicious entity in his head that would kill anyone and anything that ever dared hurt him, leaving him to take the horror and blame? _Never. _

He did not respond, and I took that minute to untangle us and push him back at arms length, watching as he impulsively reached up and touched his shoulders where my hands were. He's spent half his life with his arms folded over himself, protecting himself. I leaned my forehead against his and met his eye, as placid and gray as mine was vibrant and gold.

_You are stronger than the rest of them because you have me and you know you can never be alone. Why are you staying locked up in here? _I hated to say it but I had to say it, say it for him. It was what he would have wanted me to say, even though it wasn't something Hallelujah should ever say. _Go to everyone else. They need you now. They need someone to be strong. _Just don't get attached, you moron, or you're going to get hurt all over again.

"Hallelujah?" His voice was soft, cracked. He cries too much. "Take over."

What? 

"Take over. Until I can stop feeling the pain. I'm giving up. I need you to live it for me for a while." He was shaking as he spoke, his arms tightly wrapped around his body again. 

I hesitated a moment, unsure. _But you spend half your life telling me to leave you alone._ I reached out to touch his face. I thought he was going to slap me away for a moment until I realized what he was doing, realized he was brushing his hair back, not like it really matters but he thinks it does and I know when he does that he wants me there.

_Protect me, Hallelujah._

And that easily it was suddenly him crying in my head, not me yelling in his head, and I stood and walked quietly from the room, wiping the tears that were not my own from my face. It wasn't until a moment later that I realized they were not only his tears. They were mine as well. I was not crying for the one dead though, no, I would not do that. I was crying for him. Crying for him because I not only felt his pain, but because in asking me what he had just asked, he had finally accepted my love for him.

"I will, Allelujah."


End file.
